After years of computer journalists telling me – erroneously, I hasten to add – that my next desktop PC will be a laptop, it’s pleasing to see manufacturers such as HP trying to make it happen.
HP Envy 17 3D Viewing spectacle: the Envy 17 3D is a big beast but HP has managed to keep it looking clean and stylish
What do I hate …

Envy an HP

Uhm, I think not. After all, it's just another overweight 17 inch portable.

I've tried a few of these "foldable desktop" systems and they just don't impress beyond the 17 inch display

I agree that the asking price for an injected plastic case that by your own admission gets "almost too hot to touch" is taking the proverbial.

I guess it's nice for those who want a portable desktop, but until they produce dual Xeon QuadCore laptops, I'll just stick with my Vista workstation on the desk and my better looking, lighter, more secure and vastly superior battery life Core i7 15 inch unibody portable that doesn't have me looking like a middle aged Joe Ninety when using it.

No metaphorical green eyes here.

Not a chance. I DO have one and the only thing I'm jealous of is the i7 processor.

Come on, look at this thing. A plastic case, absurd overheating, incredible weight, and a one trick pony gag like 3D glasses? Maybe if all I did was game this might be attractive.

But after a year and a half I'm still pulling near six hours of battery life, my machine is cool to the touch in all but the heaviest games, and weighing in at 2.04 kg makes my portable actually PORTABLE.

I side with another poster on this thread, If I wanted PC hardware I'd be more likely to buy a sensible Lenovo.

Cough

Meh

It's still not that attractive, IMO. Textured plastic? blergh. 3kg? ooof. 3D? Bells and whistles, and irrelevant to hardened gamers, for which a dedicated PC with monster video card is used.

One immediate way to improve this laptop though - and all other HP's I've seen - is to take a upgrade DVD for Win7, wipe the hard drive, and install a vanilla copy using the laptops codes. Quicker and cleaner than removing all the HP bloatware one bit at a time.

It's not plastic...

Didn't make me envious, so I sent it back...

Ah yes the laptop that promises so much, but in fact is ****. Totally ****.

Battery life is rotten, 45 minutes. What the hell is the point of that. Try playing BBC iPlayer HD content on battery, it gets worse and worse until break up - does it with a clean install, a factory install or an alternative install. Even playing unreal tournament it wasn't happy. It has horrid Disk I/O performance (half the speed AT BEST) of my last laptop (and measured as such, not just perception).

It's the first time HP have left me down, and I sent it back for a full refund. A complete joke of a laptop.

It also gets ridiculously hot doing normal tasks (and no other laptop of similar spec gets as warm) - the whole thing feels like design went over reliability and function with this, which is probably why it sucks. Run run away...

1080 pixels vertically. Still?

Laptop in name only

I've the non-3D version too, and I'd never attempt to use it as a laptop. Battery life is rubbish and it gets stupidly hot (HWMonitor recorded 96C), especially when playing games. As replacement desktop that I can carry around its great, and it was a good compromise over a Apple or Sony.

Because it's the old model...

The newer models have the i7-2630qm or i7-2820qm CPUs and the ATI 6850M graphics card.

Available at http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/series_can.do;HHOJSID=f5C6TB2RLvrhZzCwkLLZY6cLyVp6Yx1kdRy2MYpLwNvt7JZ2qhKq!1050500915?storeName=computer_store&landing=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=ENVY&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/ENVY

so who is, also, not jealous

Looks like a brick - no style or penache. 3D is no excuse not to bother making it look slick. Idea is good, execution is atrocious.. those specs look like something a high school geek would have been bullied for... and who wants to get bullied?

1D too many for me..

I have the 2D version and I honestly love it. Selected it for my work over a Macbook Pro and never regretted it. On the 3D, I tried it in a store and immediately got vertigo. Maybe I'm just such an old fart that the extra D is too much.